Page 33 - Afrika Must Unite

i8 AFRICA MUST UNITE
readiness to assume the responsibility of governing themselves.
For who but a people themselves can say when they are pre­
pared ?

I know of no case where self-government has been handed to a
colonial and oppressed people on a silver platter. The dynamic
has had to come from the people themselves. It is a standing joke
in Africa that when the British start arresting, independence is
just around the corner.
The principle of indirect rule adopted in West Africa, and also
in other parts of the continent, allowed a certain amount of
local self-government in that chiefs could rule their districts
provided they did nothing contrary to the laws of the colonial
power, and on condition they accepted certain orders from the
colonial government. The system of indirect rule was notably
successful for a time in Northern Nigeria, where the Emirs
governed much as they had done before the colonial period. But
the system had obvious dangers. In some cases, autocratic chiefs,
propped up by the colonial government, became inefficient and
unpopular, as the riots against the chiefs in Eastern Nigeria in
1929, and in Sierra Leone in 1936, showed.
In wide areas of East Africa, where there was no developed
system of local government which could be used, headmen or
‘w arrant’ chiefs were appointed, usually from noble families.
They were so closely tied up with the colonial power that many
Africans thought chiefs were an invention of the British.
The alliance of the governing power with the privileged classes
tended to slow up or put a break on social change and progress,
as both had an interest in m aintaining the status quo. In Ghana,
the position of chiefs is entrenched in our Constitution, and they
still play an im portant part in the life of the country. Chiefs in
some parts of Africa have been, and still are, in the forefront of
nationalist movements. In Tanganyika, for example, the T an­
ganyika African National Union (TANU) claimed that not a
single chief supported the government; they were all supporters
of TANU. But by and large, the system of indirect rule, where
chiefs were paid to administer their areas under the supervision of
the colonial power, did lead frequently to divided loyalties, as
well as to the slowing down of democratic processes.